The present invention is directed towards memory controllers, and more particularly to the use of sensors to control and adapt to memory with changing retention characteristics.
Phase change memory is an emerging memory technology that has shown promising characteristics. Common phase change memory materials may include chalcogenides. Phase change memory materials include materials that have multiple solid states. Each of these solid states may have different properties. For example, a material may achieve an ordered solid state or a relatively disordered solid state depending on the process used to heat and cool the material. The different properties of each state may be measured. For example, the resistivity of each state may used to measure the value of a memory cell. The state with a lower resistivity may represent a stored value of 1 and a state with a higher resistivity may represent a stored value of 0 and vice versa. The solid states may, however, change over the lifetime of a memory cell due to stress.